Gaming News Roundup – Aug 14

Shadow Of War Adds Microtransactions

Some possibly bad news has come out of the highly anticipated Shadow Of War. In an announcement regarding the Nemesis system and such in the game, it was revealed that there will be microtransactions added to it, a new addition to the series. This new system will allow you XP boosts and loot chests if you cough up more cash after paying the initial $60 asking price.

“An important aspect of the Nemesis System now comes in forging, customizing and leading your own army of unique Orc followers against the fortresses of Mordor,” the announcement reads. “There are different ways to do this, including dominating Orcs by exploring the vast open-world and encountering them as part of Orc society, or players can acquire Orcs and other items through the Market (in-game store).”

They mention that you can obtain everything through normal gameplay, but this system is for those who don’t have much time to grind. While the idea of microtransactions in a full-priced, single-player game is strange to me, I’m sure someone will find value in this. I just worry that the game may be balanced to pressure players into buying the microtransactions, which seems to be the consensus of most people hearing about this. You can read the full announcement here. We’ll see how it goes October 10th when it releases.

Gundam Versus Beta In September

If you own a PS4, you may be delighted to hear that a new Gundam game is coming exclusively to the PlayStation 4. It will also be the first one on a home console in over a decade, at least in the US. Gundam Versus plans to feature Gundams from pretty much every anime that features them, including Gundam Wing. The beta will start on September 2nd at 12AM PT/ 3AM ET and end on September 4th. Mark your calendars for this one, it looks rad. You can learn about the game modes in it here.

Deathmatch Comes To Overwatch

The most traditional game mode in first-person shooters is apparently coming to the Overwatch arcade mode some time soon. If you’re on PC, you can join in on the PTR servers right now, console players will have to wait until the official release. While initially denying any plans to add this, it will be interesting to see how the balance is kept with some heroes being able to get kills far easier than some others (compare Bastion to Winston). Deathmatch will be coming in two forms, free-for-all and TDM. FFA being the first to 20 kills and TDM being the first to 30. The modes will be playable on modified version of current maps, which basically means new maps that have the same look as current maps. Obviously with FFA on the table, some may wonder if you have get the most kills for the game to go toward getting your arcade lootbox, which isn’t the case. It turns out, you can place top 4 in the 8-man free-for-all and it will go towards your lootbox. For a further breakdown you can watch the developer update here.

Nintendo Facing Lawsuit For Switch Design

This week, news of a lawsuit ran the rounds as a company known as Gamevice, creators of the Wikipad, hit Nintendo with a suit over the detachable gamepad controls that the Switch features, which looks a lot like the design of a few of their products.

They certainly share similarities and the Wikipad was released in 2013. They could have a case on their hands. Gamevice is asking for damages, which is basically “gimme money”, and they’re calling for a ban on sales of the Switch. The latter may not happen, but we’ll update as this goes on.

Does Hellblade Have Permadeath?

So this week a very interesting game by the name of Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice was released, a story-driven action game that focuses a lot on the mental illness, psychosis. On the day of release, news broke that the game displayed a message that told the player that if you fail too many times, Senua’s journey would end, which could really only be interpreted as having a permadeath mechanic. Permadeath meaning you lose all progress and start from the beginning. Many, many players didn’t like that the game stated this since it was never in the game’s marketing or advertised anywhere pre-release. Some news site mentioned in their reviews that this mechanic impacted their experience. After a while, people started testing out how many deaths it takes to trigger the game to start completely over, some people dying even over 50 times. This then lead to the conclusion that the game and some news sites lied about this mechanic being in the game. As of now, no one has proof of permadeath being enacted, and it is to be interpreted that the message is supposed to make you paranoid since the game focuses on the effects of psychosis. It’s an odd tactic, but it is pretty clever if that is the case.

That’s the news for this week. Have you been permakilled in Hellblade? Are you disappointed by the microtransactions in Shadow Of War? Let us know below! If you missed last week’s roundup, you can click here to catch up. Be sure to come back to Fanbros for another gaming news roundup!